Historical Novel

Paperback Books

Short Stories

Short Stories

Following the twin disasters of climate change and nuclear warfare, the United States is invaded on the east by the Russians and on the west by the Chinese. In the sweeping Great Plains in the middle, Native Americans are left with the dry American desert that neither the Chinese or Russians want, at least for now. The tribes develop and defend the original Indian lands. To be published in 2018.

This short story is about a Texas cowboy in 1870 who helps a crippled New Mexico marshal catch a pair of rustlers and murderers. The events and characters of this short story, the pueblo of San Esteban, and the settlement of Gabriel are fictional. However, historical facts are accurate for 1870 in New Mexico, and the named Albuquerque residents were recorded in an 1870 census with their names, occupations, and ages. Many events outside the main story line were reported by an 1870 Albuquerque newspaper, The Republican Review.

Employees of a daily newspaper learn that their rich owner is planning to sell the paper to a huge newspaper chain conglomerate. How can they possibly raise enough money to buy the newspaper themselves and save their jobs?

A Sioux Indian woman living homeless in Albuquerque is inspired to change her life when she believes she sees the chief from the 1800s, Sitting Bull, and that he gives her advice. She starts her new life by writing a play about Sitting Bull.

An archaeologist on a team excavating a 400-year-old pueblo in 1934 New Mexico has visitors from the past who make him rethink his career. This is a ghost story if you want it to be, a love story if you want it to be, and a self-discovery story if you want that — all in the context of the jazz age soon after the end of the Indian Wars.

NONFICTION — History remembers Coronado, who in 1540 invaded Pueblo country in what is now the United States. But few have ever heard of Xauían, who led the resistance against Coronado in America's first named Indian war. A shorter version of this article without endnotes was published in Native Peoples magazine in 2014.

In this short story, a woman raised by her grandparents keeps a vigil by the hospital bed of her grandfather, remembering his kindness and love. Click on the title for a link to a free download of this short story.

A woman agent for the National Security Agency arrives in Los Alamos, N.M., to investigate the death of another agent. His death looks like an accident, but she's convinced he was murdered by foreign spies who are trying to obtain secrets about the B61 nuclear bomb from Los Alamos National Laboratories.

A veteran who sacrificed a leg for his country in Iraq returns home and rejoins the county sheriff's department. Because of his artificial leg, he is no longer able to be a patrol officer and is appointed instead as a detective with the cold case unit. He is assigned the year-old case of an anthropology student who was murdered while illegally digging for Indian artifacts near New Mexico pueblos.

A Vietnam infantry veteran saved an enemy soldier's AK-47 bullet from the war. Whenever he holds it today, it takes him back 40-some years to 1969, when it was a dangerous time to be a young man in America. He remembers his war experiences, his buddies, and what it was like for all of them in the jungle warfare.

A Pueblo policeman is tormented by the discovery of an ancestor's skull in a housing development being built over an ancient pueblo site. Should he stand by and see the skull relocated to a museum's archive basement? Or should he shield tribal members who want to protect the ancestor's spirit journey? A story about the conflict between modern laws and traditional native customs.

He seems a bit disorganized. But Detective Esteban Verde is ready for the challenge when an American scuba diver is reported missing at the tourist community of San Carlos, Mexico. Verde juggles the Federal Police, his own sergeant, and a distraught widow—if that's what she really is. Click on the title for a link to a free download of this short story.

A humor-mystery short story of 41 pages. A quirky newspaper columnist suspects an editor of being a spy. However, he learns the editor is far worse than that. The result is a mystery and thriller romp with a humorous touch in which the columnist encounters murder, a voodoo doctor, two U.S. presidents (sort of), kidnapping, conspiracies, a homeless ex-congresswoman, and even Billy the Kid's great-great-grandson. Click on the title for a link to a free download of this short story.

An Indian from Jémez Pueblo is shot and killed while hunting for rabbits to feed his family. The police think the shooting is just a hunting accident, so it's up to an Albuquerque newspaper reporter to prove what really happened. This 10-page short story won the 2004 Tony Hillerman Mystery Writing Contest and was published in Cowboys & Indians magazine. Click on the title for a link to a free download of this short story.

When a newspaper reporter sees Indians from Iowa's Meskwaki tribe apparently digging up graves in a pioneer cemetery, he learns things are not what they seem. The reporter, an Indian himself from Arizona, begins a search for a thousand-year-old artifact stolen from nearby ancient Indian mounds. When he finds it, he encounters a collector willing to kill to keep what he'd dug up. Click on the title for a link to a free download of this short story.

A short story about an 85-year-old Cochiti Pueblo man dying of cancer, but when his daughter tries to put him into a hospital, he disappears. Sheriff's Deputy Alec Bluestone remembers the old man from his youth. Worried about him, Bluestone goes up into the mountains to look for the old man and make sure he's all right. What he discovers are timeless truths. This story, told with a light touch of humor and respect for Native culture, won the 2010 Society of Southwestern Authors Writing Contest. It was published with the original title of "Missing" in the 2010 issue of Story Teller magazine.

A homeless shelter falls on hard times with little hope for needed cash. Then the money shows up. Many of these characters also appear in my mystery novel, A Brother’s Cold Case. Click on the title for a link to a free download of this short story.